Shaun White Takes Slopestyle Win! | News

Posted December 19, 2008 3:57 PM

On a typically freezing Breckenridge afternoon Shaun White took home the slopestyle victory to kick off the first Dew Tour of the year. The field of riders today was top notch and the qualifying proved that the level of snowboarding is skyrocketing.

Most of the qualifying runs for today's Slopestyle looked like runs from any final last year. People were not messing around; from double corks to 1080's the bar had been seriously raised.

Shaun proved to the rest of the riders and the fans that he is still the guy to beat, but today he had to earn it. He was sitting in 3rd place going into the finals and was ready to turn it on like only he can.

The lay out of the course was rail into three massive jumps, then ending with another rail feature at the bottom. As Shaun dropped into his first run he went clean cab 270 onto the rail into a cab 1080 on the first jump into switch backside 900 and into a huge frontside 1080 to close it out at the bottom. This run left he crowd roaring and put him in first place. But just as Shaun was wrapping his run up, Mikkel Bang, who qualified first, dropped into a huge run of floating switch back 7 into cab 9 into a big frontside 1080. And just like that, Mikkel was in first and Shaun was in second.

As he stood waiting to drop into his second and final run, Shaun knew that he had to step it up. Everyone was waiting for what might be ahead. As the announcer called his name, the music turned up and he dropped in, knowing that he had to step it up. And step it up he did, going frontside 270 into a frontside 1080, into backside 900, and then he tucked into the third jump and uncorked a huge cab 1260 stomping it so clean and riding away with the victory.

Tomorrow is qualification for Superpipe! Stay tuned for exclusive updates only on SW.com.